Colorado: Sizable lead for Clinton in recent Monmouth*Monmouth* poll
Results of a new poll conducted by MonmouthMonmouth were spread. The poll asked respondents from Colorado for whom they will vote: Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In Colorado, the election outcome is often close. This is why the state is commonly regarded as a purple state, which makes it particularly interesting from a forecasting perspective.
MonmouthMonmouth poll results
The poll was conducted from July 9 to July 12. A total of 404 likely voters responded. Given the poll's sampling error of +/-4.9 percentage points, the results reflect a statistical tie.
Putting the results in context
In general, however, you should not have too much faith in the results of single polls, since they often incorporate large errors. At least, one should examine how a poll's results compare to benchmark forecasts.
In order to make the results comparable to forecasts from benchmark methods, you can translate them into shares of the two-party vote. This yields figures of 42.2% for Clinton and 0.0% for Trump. On July 13 Clinton obtained 57.8% in the MonmouthMonmouth poll and Trump obtained 42.2%.
Comparison to other polls
In comparison to the average results of other polls Clinton performed worse with 45.1 percentage points, while Trump did better with 45.1 percentage points. This difference is within the poll's error margin, which suggests that the poll is not an outlier. The most recent PollyVote predicts Clinton to gain 46.9% and Trump % of the two-party vote in Colorado.